Francis Gordon sat at his great desk by the open window. All day he had been conscious of springtime, of a stir in his veins, a longing, a dissatisfaction. What did springtime or any time matter to him—to Francis Gordon? All his real springtimes lay behind: in front, stretched nothing but a gray void of seasons—hopeless and lonely. His brave days had gone down in dust. He was a cripple—a drag on the swift wheels of humanity—clog in a bright machine. And his one puny Power, the power of words he had once deemed so strong, that too availed nothing. “To write!” he thought, “O God, to write when the world’s hand is on the sword-hilt....”

He looked out across Arlsfield Park. The sun, just dipping behind crest-line, irradiated the broad avenue of close-bitten turf. Feeding bunnies made sable dots all about the green: a herd of deer, antlered shadows, moved in and out among the new-leafed chestnut trees. At avenue’s end, the hills swelled blue-purple to a rose wash of sky....

But sunset’s beauty made no appeal to the heart of Francis Gordon. It felt cold, the heart within him, heavy with the sorrows of the world. Sunsettings and sunrisings—beauties of inanimate senseless things—God’s mockeries at humanity! God? ... The man laughed.

As if there were a God! He—whoever He might be—was no god, but a devil, a torturer. Yet men tricked themselves into this idea of godhead. Every cruelty in the world had been perpetrated in the name of some deity. The very Beasts in Gray wore His Name for device. And he, Francis Gordon, in the pride of his brain, had submitted to such trickery. For the sake of this fool-god, he had renounced the one woman.

In return for that renunciation, the fool-god had promised him the Power of Words. He was to write, to spend his life at this stupid desk....

Meanwhile, men fought....

He began to think of his own tiny share in that great fighting. Even there, he had not played a man’s part. Better to be one of those tortured men he had seen in the prison-camps of the Beast, than—a spy. Yes, a spy—it came down to that in the end. If only he had killed one Beast, killed it with his own hands, squeezed the life-blood from its foul throat....

Now, thought of the Beast obsessed him. The horrors he had seen in the Land of the Beast danced uncleanly sarabands in his brain. And God, the gentle Jesus black-coated priests still whined about on Sundays, God permitted these horrors. ... Better then, the old gods, Thor and Odin, whose priests dipped hands in blood and slew....

A vast wave of hatred surged over the man’s soul. There could be no happiness on earth until the Beast was exterminated; male and cub and female, the Beast must perish. There must be one great killing! With fire and sword, men must traverse the Country of the Beast: not only the Beast, but all his works—his handiwork and his mind-work, the corrupting thought and the corrupting accomplishment—all these must be wiped out, the very memory of them be obliterated.... And after that, there should be no more gods, neither Jesus nor Jehovah, neither Thor nor Odin—only Men, men and women, walking a new clean earth, unafraid of any Beast or any god....

In his hatred, it seemed to Francis Gordon as though Power had come back to him. In this great killing, words too might play their part. Not the words of any fool-god, but the words of a cripple—a cripple who knew that there was neither god nor devil, but only Man, man and the Beast....

And suddenly a Voice spoke to Francis Gordon, a stern clear Voice from the heart of the sunset: “Thou Fool,” cried the Voice. “Thou blind Fool! If the Beast perish, man also perishes. For this is God’s Purpose.”

But the mind of the man answered the Voice out of the sunset: “There is no God. I, a cripple, am greater than any god. In mine own mind, have I renounced Thee. Thou art the Liar of the World. There is no god save Man.”

And God said: “Dost thou deny Me?”

“Aye,” answered the man, “by the existence of the Beast, I deny Thee. By my own courage, I deny Thee. By the power which is mine, I deny Thee. By every tortured body in this world, and by my own tortured body, I deny Thee.”

“Yet thou hearest me,” said God.

Now, it was Francis Gordon who spoke. His twisted body rose from its seat by the desk; his eyes looked unafraid into the heart of the darkling sunset. “There is no god. God’s purpose is a fraud and a lie. This voice which I hear is the lying voice of my own mind.”

Very faintly came the answer out of the sunset: “I am in thy mind as I am in thy body. Both by thy mind and by thy body, I send thee a Sign.”

Then it seemed to Francis as though some veil had been drawn back from across the world; as though, for the first time, he saw God’s Purpose plain. Never while earth endured would the Beast utterly perish: for God had created the Beast even as He created man to subdue the Beast. Without this menace of the Beast, man’s finest attribute—the very manhood of him—would atrophy. He would become flabby, emasculate: and in his flabbiness, he would perish.

And looking into his own mind as the Voice bade him, Francis Gordon saw for the first time the true meaning of this dream he had christened, for want of better name, “Anglo-Saxondom.” Anglo-Saxondom was Man’s bulwark against the Beast: the spirit and essence of Liberty: a federation not of leagues and treaties, of obligations and entangling alliances, not even of common blood—but a Federation of Sentiment: a tie of mutual thought and mutual speech and mutual Ideals. So long as this Federation, the Federation of the English-speaking races, held together, the world could be safe from the Beast: for this Federation was selfless, it sought no domination save the domination of Good over Evil: it was of the Spirit, not of the Flesh; friend of every decent human being, foe to every Beast; God’s gift for suffering Humanity....

A coal, dropping in the grate, aroused him from his dreaming. It had grown almost dark. Trees and turf and hills beyond were all veiled in misty shadows—things of the twilight, ghosts of a world. And with the glory of the sunset, the glory of his visioning departed.

Doubt tore him as with pincers. Once again, this Voice he called God had lied to him. The English-speaking races were not united, could never be united. He had imagined a vain thing....

“Both by thy mind and by thy body, I send thee a Sign.” The words of the Voice came back to him. Mockery! The Voice had lied. There was no God....

Voices! He must get away from voices. Always, he heard voices. A second ago it had been God’s voice: now, it was the voice of a girl, her voice. He could have sworn he heard her voice. Some one was coming upstairs. Some one was opening the door....

“Francis!”—more voices, would he never be done with voices—“Francis!”

His eyes, jerked suddenly from dreaming, saw a shadow glide across the room towards him. He felt his heart give a great leap as though he were dying.

“Beatrice!” he stammered, “Beatrice!”

Words went from them. They stood speechless. Their hands met in the twilight. Lips faltered to lips. Then she was in his arms; and God grew real at last....